Nothing in this film was staged, no script was written. After multiple obstacles and setbacks, it is my honor to launch this film.
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There are still villages in the process of getting resettled from the Limpopo National Park. From my research I have reached three recommendations for future resettlement practice.
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I believe that this story must be told. I believe that this case of resettlement holds powerful and important lessons to be learned for resettlement practice.
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The negotiation process is called ‘participation’ heeding the World Bank policy for involuntary resettlement at the request of the German donors. This so-called ‘participation’ more closely resembles a theatre in which leaders are coerced into accepting resettlement and allowed to shape insignificant decisions.
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Residents of southern Mozambique rely on a complex set of livelihood activities to be able to live in the arid, harsh climate of the region. The compensation package for resettlement intends to replace the lost land and forest resources with plots for irrigated agriculture.
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In September 2016, with the support of the NGO Justiça Ambiental, I presented this film in Mozambique: in Massingir to the resettled villages and to LNP park staff, and to civil society in Maputo.
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In 2008, the Massingir region was practically void of any young man between the age of 18 and 40. In 2016, the bars were overflowing with youth awaiting their turn to be called to poach.
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Returning home to Nanguene for the first time since being resettled was exciting for the women of the village. They had come on a fishing expedition to the pools of the Shingwedzi; in Chinhangane they could not fish in the deep, swift current of the Olifants River. Small children and babies had been left behind with other relatives; men were nowhere to be seen. They hadn’t come to bring fish home but to feast amongst themselves.
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After being resettled with the rest of the village she and her husband couldn’t secure any fields in which to plant maize when the rains came. When other resettled families went to look for fields and grazing land back inside the park on the other side of the river, only four months after resettlement, she and her husband decided to join.
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Four months after resettlement of the first village, half of the village moved back into the park and secured new fields.
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School, and literacy, is important for the youth of any rural community. From the outside, it seems that resettlement could only be positive for the schooling of the resettled children, yet this is not always the case.
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Angry that they had not been adequately compensated, the leader of the village told the park officials that they would not resettle until they were properly compensated. They used my GPS data as leverage to argue for their case.
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As a research tool, I distributed three rounds of disposable cameras so that resettling people and residents of the host village could document their experience.
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Limpopo National Park staff knew that in the post-resettlement location there was not enough timber for resettling residents to build their houses.
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When the park staff handed over the cash compensation for resettlement, it was given to the male head of the household, not to the women.
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As we walked through the darkness on a moonless night, the sound of dry mopane leaves crushing beneath our feet was amplified in the silence, the wind was still.
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In the language of Shangana, the dialect spoken in the region of the Limpopo National Park, the word used to express 'to want’, ‘to need’ and ‘to look for’ is one and the same.
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The first words that I learned in the local language were, “Where are you going? Can I go with you?” I wanted to learn where people went and what they did, but primarily I wanted to understand where and how they got their food when there was not a drop of rain for agriculture.
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